In 1928 the novel "All Quiet On The Western Front" was published, which mercilessly analyzed the Disease War in the First World War. The novel was written by the German poet Erich Maria Remarque who became world famous in one fell swoop. The novel was filmed in 1930 by Lewis Milestone. But the Germans were alienated from the peace and, with their leader coming from Austria, Nazi-Germany also raged the Second World War, which included the German Wehrmacht’s war of extermination in Eastern Europe with the blockade of the city of Leningrad, there the Nazi erected the largest concentration camp by area. 670,000 people were killed by bombing, starvation and coldness. After the catastrophe of the Second World War, Germany's Chancellor Willy Brandt started his policy of detente and peace in the early 1970s. Brandt was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. Brandt skillfully combined politics with peace and economic interests. This trade brought the Germans plenty of wealth by buying energy from Eastern Europe in the form of oil and gas, but also by importing Soviet - later Russian - made nuclear fuel rods for the energy market of the EU. Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of Glasnost and Perestroika enabled the accession of the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany by expanding the trade with Russia and the EU. Kohl, Schröder and Merkel were the guarantors of this functioning policy. In 2022, the German film director Edward Berger redirected Remarque's "Al Quiet On The Western Front". The film got nine Academy Award nominations and won four. The film is celebrated abroad, but largely ignored in Germany. Is it because the Germans are strangers to peace again? Instead of nipping the Disease of War in Eastern Europe in the bud with diplomacy, the escalation of war followed, a bombshell deal for female and male warmongers and war profiteers. But weapons don't create peace and they don't secure jobs, weapons only create ruins.
Herbert Gantschacher is Author, Director and Producer
Herbert Gantschacher analyzes why the Germans are strangers to Erich Maria Remarque and peace
All Quiet On The Western Front, All Quiet On The Eastern Front, All Quiet In Germany
But weapons don't create peace and they don't secure jobs, weapons only create ruins